Item recognition method and apparatus.

摘要

A method is provided for recognizing an individual item at an identification station from a variety of known products for purposes of entry into an inventory and/or register system. A backlit viewplate is used and a digital image capturing device captures and stores a reference image of the viewplate. A backlit image of the item to be identified adjacent the viewplate is then captured and converted into a digitized image signal representing the captured image. The digitized image signal is processed by subtraction of a representation of said stored reference image to remove viewplate artifact, to provide a background-compensated image signal. The background-compensated image signal is analyzed to generate image descriptors characterizing features of size and/or shape of the item, and the descriptors are compared with the data stored on a computerized product database to identify data sets with the highest correlation. Visual representations of products corresponding to the data sets with the highest correlation are displayed; and an operator confirms the recognition result for entry into the inventory and/or register system.